In master copywriter Gene Schwartz’s book Breakthrough Advertising he talks about market awareness. As in, how well does your potential customer know you?
It’s important to think about because it dictates how hard you need to sell your (or your client’s) credibility. Selling to a friend is easier than selling to a stranger.
Your friend knows you well. They hopefully like and trust you. They know you wouldn’t wrongfully lead them astray. So they’re at least more open to hearing you out.
A stranger on the other hand doesn’t know you from Adam. And they’re busy, busy, busy! If you approach a stranger on the street, their reaction is going to be much different than your friends, they’ll either ignore you, or listen politely as they try and think about how they can get out of this.
In their head they’re thinking “Who the f@%k are you and why do I care what you’ve got to say?”
In business, your friend is a customer that’s been with you for years. It’s easy to sell to them. But to really grow your business, you need to market to potential customers. Strangers. And when you interrupt them with your sales pitch, they’re also thinking: “Who the f@%k are you and why do I care what you’ve got to say?”
That’s why powerful credibility is especially important to showcase when writing to this market, and in the sales letter below you’ll see a good example of what I’m talking about…
In “Dow 3,300” for Harry Dent the copywriter is making a huge claim, that the stock market is going to plummet to 3,300 points. At the time that was probably a 50% decline or something, I can’t be bothered checking.
Point is, Dent is making this massive claim to strangers. So the next thing he has to do is prove his credentials.
You can see pretty much the same in the lead for End of America.
In short, as soon as you make a massive promise, tell me why I should believe you.